


In The Dark of Little Storms

by ProwlingThunder



Series: The Everlasting List of Shenanigans [219]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Coping, Dealing With Demons, Force Ghosts, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Mothers Love You Anyway, Mothers Love You This Much, mothers and sons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 10:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19375210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: "Do you love me still?" he asks, in the dark one night when sleep doesn't come easy.





	In The Dark of Little Storms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lindwyrm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lindwyrm/gifts).



> Prompt: Anakin and Shmi, #4 Dark

_ "Do you love me still?" _ he asks, in the dark one night when sleep doesn't come easy. Not that there ever really is night, in space, but he can remember when day and night had clear cycles, before space, and the war, and the Jedi. He can remember a time when it as just him and his mother, back when life was... not easier. But simpler, yes, that it was. So much simpler.

But it's nights, times, like this, when he can't sleep and his skin burns and his suit is too tight, when his mind haunts him with memories, that Anakin gets trapped in his own head and imagines those he loves are next to him.

It's easy to imagine a dip of a mattress, imagine his mother settling down beside him, looking like she did when he'd known her, not how he'd seen her as she died. It was a small blessing, that. His imagination wasn't so cruel as to remind him of what he'd done; just cruel enough to remind him of what he had lost.

_ "Of course I do, my little storm,"  _ a twist of her lips, humor as dry as the Tattooine desert, some days.  _ "Not so little now, though, but still a storm. Why do you ask?" _

_ "All the things I've done," _ he almost doesn't say. But he says them anyway, even if it's just an imaginary shape of his mother, the soft shade of midnight.

_ "Oh Anakin,"  _ she sighed, reached up and pressed a hand against his back, rubbing at his shoulders.  _ "This burden you carry is much, yet still I love you. Storms are great and powerful and destroy much in their paths, and only the strongest structures withstand them, and people withstand them not at all." _

_ "That's not an answer,"  _ he protests, and mother's smile flits back.

_ "Isn't it? People survive until storms pass by simply not being in the way while they rage. You loved them, the people who stood in the path, and perhaps they loved you, but they did not know the nature of storms. And how could they, when they spent your whole life confining you into a jar, and finally someone pried the top free?" _ She lifts a hand and he imagines her fingers in his hair. Can nearly feel it, if he closes his eyes.  _ "A lot more was in the works than what you saw or what you see, and no one can see the destruction of the storm until after it has passed." _

It wasn't absolution. No, his mother would never tell him the storm  _ wasn't  _ responsible for the destruction it caused, would she? And he didn't want her to, either.  _ "I killed Padme." _

_ "No,"  _ his mother shook her head, voice sharp.  _ "No, my son. You tried to protect her and instead hurt her, but you did not kill her." _

_ "She died." _

_ "Yes," _ his mother agreed.  _ "And her injuries did not help. But you did not ask her to come, and you did not tell her to stand in the way of the storm, and even if you had done both, you still would not have killed her. The powers responsible for her death are not yours. Besides," _ she continued, voice lifting, almost cheery.  _ "Life continues through memory and blood. You have one, and the other still continues." _

What.  _ What? _

_ "Your son looks like you," _ she says. Anakin can't bend his mind around that. His imagination definitely shouldn't be talking about things like that. Padme had been pregnant with their  _ daughter.  _ He must make a noise of protest or confusion though, because she squeezes his shoulder reassuringly.  _ "Oh, I know, little one. But I never knew you were there until you were nearly with me. It's easy to miss a baby. No one could have known."  _ And then, as if reading his mind, she leaned into him to steal a hug, and he could nearly feel that, too, her arms around him like he was a small boy again.  _ "It's okay, Anakin. The storm will pass and the suns will come out again. You just can't see it when you're the wind." _


End file.
